1. Addressing the policy cycle
Educating legislators and decisionmakers about ITS
David Embrey Pickeral, JD
Booz Allen Hamilton, United States of America
8255 Greensboro Drive
McLean, VA USA 22102
703-377-4074
pickeral_david@bah.com
ABSTRACT: Contrary to the historical linear model for technology implementation, modern
technology policy has evolved as a continual, cyclical process. Understanding this process is
essential in educating legislators and decisionmakers in a way that will guide effectively timed
and appropriately supported implementation of new technology developments.
KEYWORDS: Technology Policy, Outreach, Education, Stakeholders, Decisionmakers,
Legislation, Funding, System Planning
BACKGROUND
As modern technology doctrine evolved over the past century or so, it followed a pattern that
could be represented as more or less a straight line. Research would yield a new capability,
which would gradually evolve into a functional, marketable resource while gaining public
acceptance and increased commercial participation, and, in time, would warrant regulatory
attention to ensure appropriate use and benefit was derived from the technology. Eventually,
an entirely different technology might appear to compete with or supplant its predecessor. In
many instances, the existing resource would continue to evolve essentially in a standalone,
linear fashion in competition with the new entrant.
Most of the industrial-age improvements in transportation, telecommunication, and utility
services that shaped the global infrastructure followed this pattern. For example, canals were
supplanted by railroads, which in turn yielded to highway and air transport, each evolving on a
substantially distinct path with entirely different enterprises, even completely separate
industries, supporting them.
In the information age, however, a new, dramatically different model has emerged. This
model, illustrated in Figure 1 below, is cyclical rather than linear.

2. Figure 1 – Technology Policy Cycle
A CONSTANT PROCESS
As new technology is developed and moved into the end user community, it is designed to
build on—but not necessarily replace—legacy capabilities. New technology releases are
almost invariably engineered to anticipate both backward compatibility with existing assets as
well as forward compatibility with capabilities that may be years away—making development,
implementation, and retirement of technology a continual concurrent, cyclical process. For
example, copper telephone wires installed decades ago—even as they are being gradually
replaced by fiber optic connections—continue to be enhanced by such innovations as ISDN
and DSL to allow for ready-access digital broadband services.
The challenge is that transportation decisionmakers—industry leaders, investors, government
officials, and even the traveling public itself—have not yet transitioned to the cyclical model.
They and the industries they affect remain effectively “stovepiped” in the linear model,
viewing transportation assets and the technologies that support them as discrete fixtures rather
than part of an integrally connected and constantly evolving network. Consequently, they may
resist change both vertically, to the introduction of new technology, as well as laterally, to the
building of intermodal capabilities.
In educating these decisionmakers about Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS)
developments, therefore, it is essential to understand the three basic phases of this cycle,
which may be described as Analysis, Consensus, and Implementation, and how they apply to
a particular proposed or existing ITS-based feature. In each phase, key messages and
information must be delivered and addressed to ensure that the educational process serves the
purpose of driving solid, long-term decisionmaking that will result in legislation and
appropriations to develop useful, scalable, and sustainable public infrastructure rather than
fostering market-driven sales of the latest “killer app.”

3. Analysis
The analysis phase comprises such activities as user needs assessment, preliminary academic
study, and baseline engineering research. During this period, technical standards development
bodies are often contemplated or initially convened. In terms of reaching key stakeholders,
two-way communications are particularly critical during this phase to guide decisionmakers in
a technology selection process that is informed by a thorough understanding of the needs of
their constituents. This is the point in the cycle when effective communications can have the
most far-reaching and lowest-cost, influence on the technology development. Even beyond
the exchange of data itself, it is important to reach out to decisionmakers early so that they
feel they are involved at the outset, and indeed are driving rather than being led by technology
development. Legislative and regulatory agencies, once the perennial trailing indicator of
technology development, have increasingly become involved much earlier in the process.
Through legislative committees, executive task forces, hearings, administrative rulemaking
processes, etc., decisionmakers are reaching out directly to industry and innovators to ensure
that maximum commercial and public benefit is derived from emerging technology.
In the ITS context, many new vehicle-infrastructure integration (VII) projects, such as
interactive traveler information systems, are now in the Analysis phase. It will be important
for the ITS community to engage early with the communities that these technologies will
potentially affect—to exchange information and to ensure that projects are initiated that have
tangible, real-world application. This early involvement, in turn, will naturally result in a
need for these services as they become defined and established during the consensus phase.
Consensus
During the Consensus phase, the nature and function of the technology is substantially
defined; however, there is not yet been full agreement on how—or even if—this technology
can be harnessed to serve some combination of economic and/or public interests. Building on
theoretical research and preliminary design specifications, engineering standards development
bodies usually come together to reach agreement on at least an initial suite of standards to
serve as a baseline for development. This phase is critical in terms of reaching
decisionmakers because it is typically the phase in which they are first asked to commit
substantial resources toward more practically oriented research, pilot programs, beta testing,
and the like. It is also the phase in which multiple emerging technologies and/or legacy
technologies may compete for development resources, with many technology applications
falling by the wayside before ever becoming viable.
In the ITS context, some applications, such as Dedicated Short Range Communications
(DSRC), have been through initial standards development and have received regulatory
approval, but are now awaiting actual implementation as part of the national infrastructure.
At the same time, these applications are competing with legacy technologies (e.g., optical
scanners for public safety signal preemption) and other new and emerging non-ITS
technologies (e.g., satellite-based systems) to cover the “last mile” to the vehicle. It is critical
that the proponents of ITS are able to differentiate it from these competitors to ensure entry
into the Implementation phase.

4. Implementation
Implementation, simply put, is the phase in which projects become products. OEMs,
infrastructure owners, and common carriers are expected to step up and “sell” these value-
added components to their constituency—be they freight shippers, passengers, or any segment
of the general public—all of whom are true buying customers. At this point, attempts to
influence the actual deployment decisions for a particular technology are largely futile. What
is critical, however, is that best practices and lessons learned are captured from all segments
of this phase to guide technology developments in other phases of development—in effect
closing the cycle.
In the ITS world, many “first-generation” proprietary ITS or ITS-like products, such as
NextBus for transit information, OnStar for emergency private vehicle communication, and
EZPass express toll readers are now, literally, “on the street.” It is important for ITS planners
to understand and carry the successes of these products back to decisionmakers. Planners also
need to highlight areas where new developments to these technologies, or the onset of other
new ITS technologies, will address the shortcomings of their predecessors and offer even
greater benefit to, and commensurably trigger demand from citizens, consumers, and those
who will ultimately influence those decisionmakers.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The author wishes to thank Donna Nelson, PhD, formerly of Booz Allen Hamilton, for her
assistance in preparing this paper.